1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of audio devices. More particularly, the present invention relates to systems and methods for providing clear media content transmission between a portable media device and a mobile media device such as an automotive radio.
2. The Relevant Technology
Numerous forms of portable media devices are proliferating today. For example, satellite radio, or Digital Audio Radio Service (DARS), is the broadcast of digital audio programming via satellites directly to subscribers or users. Through satellite radio, subscribers can receive high quality, uninterrupted, digital data such as radio over more than one hundred radio channels, for example digital quality music, talk radio, sports, news, weather, and the like. Often, a user of satellite radio has a small portable device that is used to receive the digital data stream. Other examples of portable media players are portable digital audio devices, often referred to as MP3 players, portable CD players, portable DVD players, notebook computers, and the like.
Regardless of the type of portable media device, it is often desirable to transmit the data to an automotive media player, such as a car stereo, so the automobile's media devices can be used to play the selected media. For example, a user may wish to use a portable satellite radio to play satellite radio over the car's stereo system. Similarly, a user may wish to play music from an MP3 player, or the audio from a movie played on a portable DVD player, on the car's stereo systems.
One increasingly common method for transmitting selected media content from a portable device to a car's media player is an FM transmitter. An FM transmitter is itself typically a small portable device that plugs into the headphone jack of a portable media device. The FM transmitter receives the selected media content from the portable device and broadcasts it over a selected FM channel. FM transmitters typically allow a user to broadcast the signal over one of several FM channels that can be manually selected. The car radio, in turn, is set to the matching FM channel so, in effect, the data on the portable media device is received by the car stereo on FM radio.
Perhaps the largest barrier to the widespread popularity of FM transmitters is sound quality. In fact, many users who purchase an FM transmitter often stop using them because of sound quality issues. This is in part because, even when FM channels are successfully matched between the FM transmitter and the car stereo, transmitted sound can be static prone. This effect is greatly accentuated by the presence of overlapping FM broadcast from local news or radio stations. Thus, in major metropolitan areas, it is a user-intensive effort to locate a usable FM channel that does not overlap with local FM stations, thereby minimizing the static and allowing a user to have a positive listening experience.
In addition, a user traveling within or between metropolitan areas may experience an added challenge in the form of changing FM stations. In other words, although a certain FM frequency may be clear in, for example, a region of San Jose, Calif., that FM frequency may not be clear in neighboring San Francisco, Oakland, or even other regions of San Jose. Thus, users traveling by automobile in the San Francisco Bay Area may find the use of FM transmitters difficult or unpleasant as they are required to frequently locate different clear FM channels as they travel from region to region and have to constantly change settings on both the FM transmitter and the car radio.
The foregoing challenges to the use of FM transmitters can also apply to other forms of wireless communications. Accordingly, improved systems, devices, and methods are needed for simplifying the use of transmitters and increasing the quality of a user's media experience.